


What If I Told You

by DeadWalker



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Background Natasha/Clint, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, Natasha and Bucky are bros forever, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson is a Saint, The Avengers are in reality the best dysfunctional family ever, teeny tiny references to canonically deaf clint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-13
Updated: 2015-01-13
Packaged: 2018-03-07 10:43:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3171794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadWalker/pseuds/DeadWalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky tries to tell Steve something important. It takes a few tries before he gets it right.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What If I Told You

**Author's Note:**

> Because I actually love it when people get excited about something I write, this goes out to [Masamiya](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/masamiya) \- self-indulgent fluff almost without plot, ta-da. Hope you like it.

Bucky remembered the first time he had tried to confess it to Steve.

When he had felt brave enough to take a leap of faith, to plunge into the abyss and just  _see_  what it would feel like.

He was drunk – the whiskey they had found on the run-down summer house in the woods in Switzerland was really something after such a long time without a single drink. It burned in his throat and sang in his veins, bubbling up to his brain make his world sway a little as he walked. He had left the rest of the Commandos slurring songs around the fire, Dum Dum already passed out and snoring against Morita.

Bucky stumbled into the tent he shared with Steve, and tripped over his own feet.

“Buck?” Came the sleepy whisper from the bundle of blankets on the cot.

It took a few seconds and two slurred attempts before Bucky could get his mouth to work right to answer. “I's me Stevie. Go back t' sleep.”

Steve being Steve, he didn't listen to a word Bucky was saying. He was suddenly untangled from his blankets, and standing very, very close. He ran so hot these days he had stripped down to just his shirt and pants to sleep in, even though the wind howling outside kicked up snow and froze everything down to the core.

The part of Bucky's brain that was still capable of some form of coherent thinking process thought this was a terrible idea, but the part addled by the whiskey didn't seem to care less. Steve was nice, and warm, and smelled real good, too. And he was so  _tall_  these days. He could probably catch Bucky if he decided to just tip forward now and bury his face in his chest.

“Y' look nice,” he slurred, and planted a hand on that chest. Wow, it really  _was_  nice. “M' St'vie. So pretty.” He swayed a little on his feet.

“Bucky, what the –? Are you  _drunk_?” Steve was looking at the hand on his chest like he couldn't figure out what it was doing there.

“No, I'm singin' cabaret.  _Of course I'm drunk_ , Stevie, whaddaya think.”

“Christ, just –“ Steve's hands appeared on his shoulders. Bucky only felt it, his eyes must have slipped closed at some point, and he wasn't complaining. Steve had big, broad hands. The fingers of an artist. “Let's get you to bed. Just sleep it off.”

“Don' wanna sleep.”

The sigh that Steve heaved out tickled Bucky's face. “What, then?”

It was exactly the wrong question to ask at that time, and the alcohol-soaked part of Bucky's brain kicked into gear _._

_I'll show you what I want._

He tipped forward again, and wrapped both of his arms around Steve's neck. As expected, Steve's own hands instinctively came to rest on Bucky's waist to steady him. It was just as well, Bucky thought foggily, he might have actually keeled over without their support. Their chests bumped together, and Bucky grinned like a shark.

_There. Perfect._

“What are you –?” was all Steve got out before Bucky pulled Steve to him by the lapels and kissed him, square on the lips. “One for the road,” he murmured, Steve's startled exhale hot on his lips. He pressed their mouths together again. “Another for good luck.”

Bucky pulled away before Steve could recover from his shock – Steve, poor Steve, was standing stock still, his mouth a soft 'o' – and turned on his heels.

If Steve ever brought it up, Bucky would chalk this up to alcohol. He would tell him he wasn't himself, wasn't thinking. It was just a dumb stunt, the sort he pulled all the time. Steve would understand – he was the uncrowned king of reckless, stupid stunts. Who knew, maybe Bucky had brain damage after being tortured by Zola, and brain damaged people should have some liberties.

He wouldn't tell Steve he had been waiting to do that for years. He wouldn't tell him he had chosen this moment to do it, because he was afraid he wouldn't live long enough to gather the courage to do it sober. That he would go to his grave having never known what it would feel like.

It wasn't like Steve had even kissed him back.

He crawled into Dernier and Falsworth's tent on the spare cot, and passed out.

 

♦

 

“Natalia.”

“Yes, James?”

“Can I ask you something?”

She was disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling six handguns on a table in the common area of the Tower. She had the weapons spread out on the table in front of her, hands making quick work of cleaning and oiling the parts and putting them together again. “Of course,  _zolottse_.”

“Can two fellas get married these days?”

Behind them, a coffee cup hit the floor with a crash. “Oh my  _god_ ,” Tony said, and ran out of the room, flapping his arms like a demented bird. Before he disappeared in the elevator, Bucky heard him yell “JARVIS, it's happening! Initiate emergency protocol, code ' _Captain Bambi Eyes and Sergeant Hot Hobo Getting it On_.'”

“Sir, you must be aware that I have no idea what that means,” came the AI's answer before the doors slid shut.

Bucky ignored it. It wasn't like Tony didn't say odd shit all the time.

Clint froze as he was pulling a a six-pack of beer from the fridge behind the bar. His head whipped around so fast Thor – standing next to him and looking mildly baffled – had to catch the bottles before they slid out of his hands and hit the floor. He had arrived only few hours earlier and looked just about ready to go back to Asgard where things actually made sense.

Clint's eyes had lit up with a hellish light, the sort Bucky had very quickly learned to associate with minor disasters involving Clint's 'plans' and potential for bodily injure. “I fucking knew –“ was all he got out, before Natasha's sharp gaze cut him short.

Bucky ignored that, too.

When he turned his attention back to Natasha, her eyes were fixed on him with a calculating look. She patted the seat next to her. “Sit down.”

Bucky obeyed, and folded his hands awkwardly on his lap. Two full minutes ticked on by as Natasha carefully took apart a Beretta, her mouth pursed.

Finally, she raised her gaze. “I'm assuming you're asking for a reason.”

It wasn't a question.

“I... uh.”

He kept his eyes on his folded hands. It seemed to be easier than looking anyone in the eye – He was pretty sure every single person in the vicinity was listening in on the conversation, including Sam who was lounging on a couch nearby with a dog-eared  _Prisoner of Azkaban_  on his lap.

“I saw two guys in the park today –” Bucky said. Clint made a strangled noise before Sam's book smacked to the side of his head with a dull thwack. “– and they were...they...”

The two men had been standing in the line of an ice cream van, holding hands. One with a wild mohawk, the other waering a shirt with a picture of Spider-Man on it. Spider-Man Shirt had been leaning close, lips brushing the Mohawk Hair's ear as he whispered something to him. Mohawk had blushed furiously and swatted him away with a look on his face like he had been holding in a laugh. The raised hand had made the sunlight reflect something on his left hand; a gold band, gleaming in the sunlight on his finger. A matching one in the hand still wrapped around the Mohawk Hair's fingers.

Bucky didn't know why he panicked.

It had made something turn so violently in his stomach that he had almost tripped on his own feet in his haste to flee the scene. After that, he had spend exactly three minutes and forty-two seconds breathing in a too panicky way in the Tower elevator.

“They were  _together_ , Natalia,” Bucky finally mumbled. “Not hiding from anyone. And they looked... happy _._ ”

Natasha tilted her head slightly, mouth pressed into a thin line. “It's a new world. Things have changed a lot in the past few decades. It's not something you need to hide, anymore.” She picked up the half-way disassembled Beretta, and resumed pulling it apart. To Bucky, she handed a .38 SIG Sauer and a soft cleaning rag. He took them without a word. “At least not in New York.”

“And can they get married, too? Two... fellas? Or two dames?”

“In some states, yes.”

“In New York?”

It was amazing, really, how her face could soften into something as gentle as the look she was now giving him. “Yes, James.”

Before Bucky could really process this, his phone chirped loudly from his pocket – the Stark phone Tony had ceremoniously presented to him, already programmed with the contact info of the entire team and (as Bucky would later discover) a camera roll full of pictures of sleeping Steve, drool on his pillow. He hadn't asked Tony how the hell he had managed to take those.

He hadn't deleted them, either. No-one would have to know.

He dug the phone out of his pocket. The message was from Steve. ' _Have you remembered to eat_?' It read. Two seconds later, another one chimed in. ' _I made pancakes. left them on the counter you can heat them up_ '

Bucky poked at his phone until he could find the yellow face sticking its tongue out, sent that, and followed up with: ' _yes mother_ '

“Steve again?” Natasha asked.

Bucky stuffed the phone back to the picket of his hoodie. “Yeah. He wants to know if I've eaten.” He pulled a face. “It used to be the other way around. Me fussing about him.”

“He fusses because he cares.” She narrowed her eyes at him. " _Have_  you eaten?"

Bucky fled before she could tell Steve. She wouldn't be above that.

 

♦

 

”Just tell him.”

“How?”

“Words, James. Surprisingly easy to use when you put your mind to it.”

They were sitting on that small spot on the 32nd floor balcony, that one spot Bucky knew the Tower's security cameras did not cover. Natasha's bare feet were propped on Bucky's lap, and her fingers were making patterns on his palm. They traced a scar, a pale circle of skin the only reminder of a Turkish mercenary who had taken a shot at him.

”You mean more to him than anything else in this world right now,” she said, lifting her gaze.

Bucky eyed her sceptically. ”Wasn't it you who always says that love is for children?”

Her smile was small, but it was still there. ”Things change.”

“Really?” His eyes dropped to the delicate necklace, a thin silver arrow resting on her chest, and he smiled. “He better be good for you.” Natasha just quirked her eyebrow, but said nothing, so he went on. ”He better be worthy of you.”

She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and sniffed. ”I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about.”

“Tell him I'll beat the shit outta him if he hurts you.”

“If I hypothetically had any idea what you were talking about, I would have no doubt he already knows that,” she said with an amused quirk of her mouth. “And I would appreciate the concern. Hypothetically.”

Bucky let out a snort, and they lapsed into silence. It was a comfortable one, and one Bucky didn't want to break if only for the look on Natasha's face – she looked undisturbed, calm,  _open_. Like she was turning something over in her head, and it was such a foreign expression on her face, Bucky decided her let her be.

After a minute, she finally shifted. “But I meant what I said, James. People like you and Steve –” She tapped a finger at Bucky's chest – a light touch, like the steps of a spider running on its net. “ – he's like an ocean, and you are a river.”

At Bucky's blank look, she cupped his cheek in one small hand, and leaned forward to press a warm, dry kiss on the stubble on his jaw. ”The water in the river always runs towards the sea,  _rybka_. You always find your way to one another. No matter what. It'll sort itself out.”

Bucky fiddled with the cuff of his sleeve, and chewed his lip as he thought. Natasha had gone back to looking thoughtfully over the bustling city beneath them. “You really think so?” He asked finally.

“I do. He would burn the world down to get to you.” She nodded towards the manila folder sitting between them, the Cyrillic letters on the cover like bloodstains. ' _Project Winter Soldier_.' “He already did.”

 

♦

 

“I think you're my ocean,” Bucky blurted out.

That was four days later.

It was their weekly movie night – one or two evenings of the week dedicated to a time when the whole team would pile up at the rec room in the Avengers Tower, prepare enough food to feed a small but ravenous army, and catch up on their pop culture to-do list. Even Thor had promised to make it again, and the rest of the team was lounging around the Tower waiting for him to return from London, Jane in tow. Steve and Bucky had retreated to the floor Tony had ceremoniously declared theirs.

Steve was drawing, sitting by the window with a serene look on his face and his fingertips tracing the paper in his hands. And Bucky... Bucky just couldn't keep his damn mouth shut.

Steve's hand on his sketchpad faltered, and finally stopped. Carefully, he put down the pencil, and craned his neck to look where Bucky was frozen stock still in the doorway, two steps over the living room threshold. Bucky knew he should say something,  _do_  something, explain his bizarre word vomit, but he felt like a deer caught in the headlights. He probably  _looked_  like a deer in the headlights, his heart rabbiting in his ribcage like it wanted to burst out and make a run for it.

 _An_ ocean _, what the_ hell _?_

“Your... ocean?” Steve finally asked. He didn't even look judgmental. He didn't look like he wanted to mock Bucky for the odd shit he blurted out sometimes, but Bucky still wished for twenty very uncomfortable silent seconds ticking by that the ground would just open up and swallow him.

When he finally found his voice again, he hurried to continue. “I- I mean... didn't really mean anything,” he stammered out. “Forget it,” he said, and backtracked into hallway, and finally into the elevator.

Steve found him ten minutes later, curled in his favorite hiding spot. Bucky had never told Steve about it, and it wasn't exactly an obvious choice, so he had no idea how Steve found him. Steve didn't even make a show of looking for him, he just walked straight from the door of the gym into the back corner, and looked up.

“Bucky?” He said quietly.

Bucky glanced down from the rafters, where he was sitting on one of the exposed support beams and leaning on the wall.

He didn't know what to say, just stared down helplessly, so Steve went on. ”Can we talk?”

“About what?”

“About what you just said, Buck,” Steve said patiently. “What you meant by it.”

Bucky shuffled uncomfortably on his perch and felt the tips of his ears flush. “Nothing. I didn't mean anything, it was nothin' important,” he mumbled.

If Steve would just stop  _looking_  at him. He was wearing that expression of his again, the one that meant he was treading carefully around Bucky. The small and hopeful one that meant everything out of the ordinary Bucky said was nothing short of a small miracle, like it was something he needed to treat with care so he wouldn't spook it back to where it had came from.

Bucky knew he didn't talk much. There was a very short and a very exclusive list of things he said on a daily basis, and everything else was a rare bonus – Steve's name was the word that rolled off his tongue like it was made to the shape of it. There was no other word he has said more often, and nothing that had ever meant as much as those five letters that held his whole world in them.

He said 'Steve?' and 'pass the milk, please' and 'shut up, Tony, or I'll punch you in the throat.' Other than that, he rarely bothered. It wasn't like Steve and him needed words to communicate. They fit together like pieces of a puzzle put together so many times the edges had smoothed over.

When he ventured beyond ten-word sentences or was the one to start a conversation, he could see the light flicker on behind Steve's eyes.

Bucky knew that light. It cued the appearance of that small smile that was more radiant than a thousand stars. It was  _luminous,_ and nothing made Bucky feel more guilty _._

”What?” Bucky always asked, as he took in the expression. He knew that smile was reserved for him, and him only.

It meant Steve was seeing progress.

One time it came as a result of Bucky choosing what they would watch on Netflix (”I don't know what  _Princess Bride_  is, Steve, but we're not watching it”), and once when they were grocery shopping and Bucky made a face at the cornflakes Steve was holding up.

”I'm not eating that,” he had said, and Steve had gotten this strange look on his face – like he was  _proud_. ”What?” Bucky had asked.

Steve would just shake his head, and reach over to press his hands on Bucky's skin. It didn't seem to matter where, he just seemed to want to lay his comforting hands wherever he could reach. ”Nothing,” he always said. ”I'm just happy, that's all.”

Bucky shuffled on his perch, and finally slid down to land beside Steve on silent feet. He needed to say it.

_Just tell him_

Like it would be so easy. Maybe he could gather his courage and just blurt it out. Just get it out there, and they could go from there.

_But how do you tell your oldest friend you have loved them just about since the moment you met?_

Bucky opened his mouth. Nothing came out, so he swallowed, and then tried again. “I gotta tell you something, Steve.”

Steve's brow furrowed, but he nodded. “Okay.”

“It's important.”

“Do you wanna go back to our floor or –?”

“No,” Bucky interrupted. “Here is fine.”

Never let it be said of Steve that he wasn't patient. He waited quietly, sedately, for several long minutes as Bucky tried to put his thoughts into words. Thoughts that tried to scatter in his brain like a flock of frightened birds, leaving him reeling and with no idea how to start.

Eventually, he decided the best course of action would be to just start with the simple truth.

“You.. you do know you're everything to me, Stevie,” he said. “Right?”

Steve looked startled only for a split second before his face softened. “Yeah, Buck. And I know it sounds corny, but you're my whole world, too.”

“So... yeah... I'd like to try something.” Bucky took a step closer. “ If that's okay with you?”

“Okay?”

Before he could back out and turn tail and run, Bucky took a hold of Steve's face – as gently as he could with the metal hand – and pressed a kiss to Steve's lips. They were soft, and dry. He waited two seconds, three, then four, and –

Nothing.

Steve stood there, rooted in place. Bucky had closed his eyes, he wasn't sure, but he could have bet all of his money on the fact that Steve's were still open. A crash. The mug of tea he had been holding when he had walked in must have slipped his fingers and smashed to the floor.

 _Shit_.

Fucking  _shit_.

Bucky opened his eyes and took a step bag, releasing his hold on Steve. Steve, who looked for all intents and purposes like someone had just slapped him on the face with a cold fish. Two spots of color sat high on his cheeks but other than that his whole face seemed to have gone ashen gray.

“Shit,” Bucky stammered out. “Sorry, I – ”

And he ran.

 

♦

 

It was Natasha who found him, curled up in his bed and the covers tugged all the way up over his head. She crawled in next to him, and shimmied under the blankets. She was barefoot, and dressed in a pajama pants and a t-shirt with a picture of a cartoon bird on it that Bucky was pretty sure was actually Clint's.

She pulled down the covers, and shoved a cookie in Bucky's face.

”Where the hell did you get this?”

Natasha lifted one shoulder in a delicate shrug, and dug a second cookie out of her pajama pants' pocket. “Tony has a stash.” She thought for a second, then corrected: “Had.”

Bucky turned the cookie around in his hands before taking a small nibble.“I don't really wanna talk,” he mumbled around the crumbs in his mouth.

“That's fine. Didn't really come here to talk, if you don't want to.”

“What, then?”

“For company.” She held out her hand, and waited with a pointedly raised eyebrow until Bucky took it and twined their fingers together. She nodded appreciatively and laid her head on his shoulder. She didn't seem to either notice or care that it was the metal one, slightly cold to the touch. Her fingers felt tiny in Bucky's grip. “I do have a stash of vodka I can break out, if you'd rather deal with this that way.”

“I thought you were all for healthy ways of coping with stuff.”

“That's Wilson. My methods are actually effective.”

“Did someone say vodka?” A voice piped up. Clint was standing in the doorway, clad in nothing but a t-shirt and a pair of boxer briefs, and – for some bizarre reason Bucky wasn't even gonna think about – was twirling a twin set of throwing knives in his hands. He eyed the two of them. “Cool, a pajama party. Can I join?”

“No,” Bucky said. ' _Go find your own party_ ' he added, signing like Clint had taught him.

Two seconds later, Clint thumped on the mattress on his other side, and after three more, he had shoved his absolutely freezing feet under his leg and reached over him to dig at Natasha's pockets.

Holding a cookie in one hand, he then swatted Bucky on the shoulder. “So, how did it go?”

For a few precious seconds Bucky considered just pretending not to know what he was talking about. Like Clint wasn't really asking what he was asking about and not every single person in the Tower knew what had gone down just an hour earlier. But apparently word traveled fast. And he could just accept it and get this off his chest.

He opted for the latter. “Bad,” was all he said.

Clint's frown looked genuinely confused. “Bad how?”

“Bad as in Steve kinda freaked out.”

“What happened?” Natasha asked softly. The hand still holding Bucky's tightened a little, a gentle squeeze.

Bucky had no doubt Natasha already knew exactly what had happened. She always knew what was happening in the Tower (she was scary, that way) but he figured she wanted to hear it from him.

“I... uh. I kissed him.”

“And?”

_And that was probably the second and the very last time he got to do that._

“He... well...” Bucky wasn't actually sure he could say it. Having the ground swallow him up would be easier than re-living the look on Steve's face when Bucky had pulled back. The shock. The look of utter and absolute disbelief. Steve had even dropped the mug of tea he had been holding, splashing the liquid everywhere. Some of the scalding hot water had spilled on his hands, but he had seemed to not either notice or care. His mouth had been hanging open.

“He what?” Natasha prompted.

Clint was twirling one of the knives in his hand. “Do I need to have a chat with him?”

“I'm an assassin, Barton, not a twelve-year-old with a crush.”

Clint just shrugged, like he couldn't tell the difference. Bucky decided to let that one slide.

“What happened, James?”

Bucky bit down on his lip until he could taste blood. “He didn't kiss me back. He just... stood there.” Even now, thinking back on it, he could feel the flush of shame creeping its way up his neck. He was sure his whole face was scarlet. “And I left.”

How could he have been so stupid? How was it that he had made the same mistake not once but _twice_ in his life? How the hell did he think that Steve saw him as anything else other than a friend, someone he could trust?

And he had messed that up and broken that unconditional faith Steve had always had in him – again,  _twice –_ because he was selfish enough to want something Steve had no obligation to give.

“You ran?” Clint asked.

“Made a dignified exit,” Bucky muttered pointedly. “I don't think he's –“ The words got stuck in his throat, but Natasha didn't urge him on. Her thumb was making small circles on the back of Bucky's hand. Minutes ticked by, but neither Clint nor Natasha seemed to be in a hurry. “He doesn't love me back,” he finally blurted out.

To his utter horror, he could feel the telltale sign of tears burning behind his eyelids.

The look Natasha and Clint shared over his head was so heavy he was sure they were actually communicating on a different level of consciousness.

“Oh, honey,” Natasha sighed. She clicked her tongue.

Clint shook his head. “You have no idea, do you, Barnes? Tasha, what do we do? He has no damn clue.”

“I don't even know where to start,” Natasha said.

“No idea about what?”

Natasha raised a questioning eyebrow at Clint, who just threw his hands up in surrender. “I'm not qualified to handle this.”

“Me neither. Get up, Barnes.”

After she had pulled him to his feet, they were almost out of the door before he thought to get suspicious. “Where are we going?”

“Someone who knows how to handle this.”

“Sam,” Clint said when Bucky shot them a narrow-eyed look.

Bucky could feel the panic clawing its way up his throat. He dug in his heels. “You can't tell Wilson,” he squawked.

Natasha's eyeroll was truly impressive. “He already knows. Everyone kind of knows, because Steve is an open book and the most terrible liar in the whole wide world. He's projecting so violently I wouldn't be surprised if the whole Manhattan knew he was in love with you.”

“That's –” That was most likely the stupidest thing he had heard that day. Steve may have loved Bucky more than almost anything else. Bucky knew that; that was the one constant in his life unchanged by blood, time, or a lifetime of stolen memories. But he knew without a question that Steve wasn't  _in love_  with him. Those two unreciprocated kisses were proof enough. “That's absurd.”

“You're right,” Clint said. He patted Bucky's metal arm. “It's more like the whole east coast.”

 

♦

 

The expression on Sam's face was almost a carbon copy of the one Natasha had been wearing for the past hour. If it wasn't mildly terrifying, Bucky would have laughed.

He fixed Bucky with an unimpressed look. Then his gaze flitted over to Natasha and Clint, standing on either side of him, each holding on to a handful of his shirt like he might have run away otherwise. “I see you finally found him.”

“He was hiding in his bed,” Natasha said.

“I wasn't hiding.”

“Under the covers,” Clint went on, like Bucky hadn't even spoken. “He had to be lured out with cookies.”

“I ate like  _one_ , you stole the rest.”

Clint flapped his hand dismissively. “Details.”

Sam's sigh was long-suffering. He breathed in, then exhaled so deeply he deflated like a week-old balloon. “Man, you are actually more stubborn than any two people who couldn't live without each other and I can't tell which one of you is the one with the thicker skull.”

Bucky had already opened his mouth to protest, but Sam silenced him with a raised hand. “No. This time you will just listen to me.” He pointed to his couch. “Sit your ass down.”

He would have gone willingly – Sam was damn terrifying when he wanted to be – but neither Clint nor Natasha seemed to be willing to take the risk. They kept their hold of him even after they had plunked him down on the couch cushions, and settled on either side of him.

So apparently this was not going to be a private session.

Sam dragged a chair over, and sat on it backwards, arms crossed on the backrest. “So,” he said. “I already talked to Steve but I want to hear your version of the things. Tell me what happened.”

 _Talked to Steve?_  Bucky thought dizzily.

Was he angry? What had he said? Did he want Bucky out of their apartment? Of course he wouldn't. Steve was so good, so damn noble. He'd let Bucky believe everything was fine. He'd give him anything he wanted.

“I can  _hear_   you thinking, Barnes,” Sam said. “Quit panicking and just tell me.”

“I – well... I think that I...” Bucky risked a glance at Sam's pinched expression. “I think I'm in love with him.”

A raised eyebrow was the only answer he got from Sam. An eyebrow that said ' _and_?'

“And I think he hates me,” Bucky managed.

“Oh, good Christ,” Sam muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “How do you even –“

“We told you it was bad,” Clint said dryly.

Sam let go of his nose and scooted closer on his chair. “Okay, let me explain something to you, Barnes,” he said. “Let's start with this one: When they pulled him out of the ice, when they thawed him out, do you know what the first thing out of his mouth was?”

Bucky shrugged helplessly. His briefings on the subject hadn't really included that, and he knew Steve didn't like talking about it. “No?”

“It was 'Peggy,'” Sam said, “Followed very closely by 'Bucky'”.

“I don't see how this is –“

Sam lifted his hand to stop him. “No, let me finish, okay?” When Bucky nodded, he went on. “I can't say that I've known Steve for a long time.” He rolled his eyes, smiling slightly. “Hell, the first time we met, I didn't recognize him right away, not without his suit of his shield and the whole getup. What I  _did_  recognize was that smile he wore. It's something I see on the faces of soldiers  _every single day_. You know the expression I'm talking about?”

Bucky shook his head numbly.

“I call it the 'sad smile',” Sam said. “It's the sort of smile that's a little lopsided, a little too brittle on the edges to be actually called one. And it's almost exclusively worn by people who have lost something invaluable. They don't see much reason for being around anymore, not without the something or the someone they have lost, but they try anyway. And man...” Sam shook his head. “The one on Steve's face was something else. Once, I asked him who it was that he had lost, and you know what he said?”

The shrug Bucky managed this time was even smaller.

“He talked for hours. And there was room only for two people in what he told me, who had both meant the world to him, and both of whom he had lost. I know Agent Carter is still alive, but she isn't well. Steve said he never got the chance to say it, but he did love her, and losing her broke Steve's heart. But the thing that ripped the thing right out of his chest –“ Sam pointed a finger at him. “ – was you. When he saw you on that bridge, looking like a stranger but alive, he thought he finally got you back. And what really killed him was when had to face the cruel fact that you didn't even remember your own name, let alone his. He thought he had lost you all over again. That one other person besides Peggy in this whole goddamn world he had loved more than anything.”

The silence that fell after Sam's words felt thunderous. It rippled like tar around Bucky, threatening to swallow him whole, pull him under. He felt dizzy. “But – but why didn't he say anything. Ever?” Bucky could feel himself lose it a little, the words were dropping out of his mouth faster than he could stop them. “This wasn't the first time I've tried to kiss him, I tried it once before, and he hated it. He just stood there, like I had slapped him in the face.”

“I think that's just the way he reacts when people kiss him unexpectedly,” Natasha said. “When I did, he just stood there, mouth hanging slack open.” She shrugged, then eyed at the open-mouthed stares of the three men. “What? It was an emergency.”

Clint shut his mouth with a snap. “You kissed Cap?”

“Yeah.”

“On the mouth?”

“Yes, Clint. And I bet it would have been really nice, too, if he had actually kissed me back.” She raised a pointed eyebrow at Bucky. “But I guess I'm just not his thing.”

Sam shook his head. “Okay, but getting back on track here. What I meant to say was that people like Steve... They don't always say the words to let you know they care. They let their actions speak for themselves.”

Bucky's brow furrowed. “Like how?”

Natasha just smiled. “There are a lot of things people say instead of 'I love you'. They say 'be careful', 'take care', or 'call me when you get there.'”

“Or 'have you remembered to eat,'” Clint said pointedly.

Natasha covered Bucky's hand with her own, and squeezed gently. “They say 'I won't fight you'. And they'd rather die than risk hurting you.”

 

♦

It took him a day and a half.

When Bucky eventually had the courage to crawl back out of his hiding, he found Steve curled on the couch in the Tower's rec room, stacks of biographies scattered around him. He looked tired. His hair was mussed and the shirt he was wearing underneath his hoodie looked wrinkled, like he had slept in it.

Bruce sat in the far corner, murmuring quietly to Tony as they tinkered with something that looked like the spawn of a toaster and a slightly wonky computer keyboard. Clint must have slunk down from one of his hiding spots, because he was suddenly hovering behind Bucky, trying to look nonchalant.

Before Bucky could even open his mouth, Steve's head whipped up. In three long strides he was standing in front of Bucky, crushing him into a bone-grinding hug.

“Bucky,” he said into Bucky's neck, voice muffled. “Where did you go? I was so worried, and I tried to come look for you but Sam dragged me back to give me this eighteen-minute lecture about –”

“Steve,” Bucky cut in, and Steve snapped his mouth shut like a button had been pressed. He pulled back to look Bucky in the eye. “I, uh. Could we talk?” He glanced around to Bruce and Tony – now pretending very hard like they weren't listening in – and then back at Clint. “In private.”

“Of course.”

Steve pressed a hand lightly on the small of Bucky's back and steered him to the glassed-off balcony overlooking the twinkling lights of dusky Manhattan.

He ushered Bucky outside, and slid the door closed behind them. Then Steve just... waited. It didn't look like he was going to be the first one to open his mouth, and judging by the look on his face – like he had kicked a litter of puppies down the stairs – Steve looked like  _he_  was the one who was thinking he should apologize.

They just stood there, both shuffling uncomfortably. Over Steve's shoulder, Bucky could see Clint standing by the couch, frowning. ' _Get on with it,_ ' he signed wildly. ' _Jump his bones or whatever._ '

Steve wasn't looking at Bucky's hands, so he as surreptitiously as possible tapped his middle and index finger to his thumb. ' _No._ '

Clint flapped his arms. ' _Chicken_ ,' he mouthed. He lifted his hands again, obviously to say something, but Bucky turned his attention back to Steve. He was also kinda regretting having learned ASL.

He cleared his throat. “About before –“

That seemed to break a floodgate in Steve, and he almost fell over his own feet in his haste. “God, Bucky, I'm so sorry,” he burst out with. “I wasn't– I didn't– “ He grabbed a hold of Bucky's hands. “Please tell me you'll forgive me? I wasn't thinking, I didn't know what to –“

“What –” Bucky's brow furrowed. “What the hell do you mean? I was the one who was supposed to say sorry to you.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean  _why_? 'Cause I kissed you, Steve, and you obviously weren't that into it.”

Steve's mouth was hanging open. He just stood there, looking like someone had snapped a wire in his brain and things had stopped making sense ever since. He swallowed once, twice, then – very softly – said, “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh. So I'm sorry, I won't do it again.” Bucky could feel the flush creeping up his neck again. “So I'll just –“ He gestured vaguely towards the balcony doors.

“No!” Steve said. He grabbed a hold of Bucky's sleeve like he was worried he'd make a run for it again. “No, I meant 'oh' like, 'oh, I just realized the first time you kissed me might not have been just because you were drunk' and 'oh, I thought you ran away because you realized it wasn't what you wanted but now it kind of seems like you might have liked it as much as I did.'” Steve shuffled on his feet. His gaze was glued to Bucky's left shoe. “So... that kind of 'oh.'”

Now it was Bucky's turn to stare. “Right.” Moment of truth, then. “So, could we try again?”

Steve flushed, right to the tips of his ears, but he nodded. “Yeah, let's try again.”

Carefully, very carefully, Bucky took a step closer. Then another one, until he was so close to Steve he could feel his breaths tickling his face. He pressed a hand to the side or Steve's warm neck – Steve didn't even flinch under the metal – and cupped a hold of his jaw with the other. “You ready?”

Steve nodded. “Yeah.” His hands found their way to Bucky's waist, tugging him closer until there wasn't even an inch of space between them. “You know the whole team is staring at us, right?” He nodded towards the living room. Apparently word traveled fast, because they were all now hanging out in front of the TV, trying to look casual.

“Well, we better give them something to look at, then.”

It took every ounce of Bucky's self control to start slow, to take it easy. Steve ducked forward to close the tiny distance between them, and pressed their mouths together, close lipped. Bucky saw his eyes flutter closed just before he closed his own.

Without opening his eyes, he pulled back just enough to murmur against Steve's mouth. “Nice. Okay. Show time?”

He felt Steve's crocodile grin against his lips. “Show time.”

His hands moved from Bucky's waist to his neck to tip Bucky's head to get a better angle. It only took a light swipe of his tongue across his lower lip, and Bucky's mouth fell open.

And Bucky lost his train of thought.

He kind of forgot to check what kind of a reaction they got out of the team, their noses practically pressed to the glass of the balcony doors. It also took an embarrassing amount of time to figure out who was making the whining noises deep in their throat. It might have been Bucky himself. But Steve was warm, and he was here, and boy, was he  _kissing back_  this time.

When Steve finally pulled back, Bucky was pretty sure this is what you felt like if someone had replaced the blood in his veins with napalm, or possibly a mild electrical current. He blinked owlishly up at Steve's flushed face.

“Better?” Steve asked a little hoarsely.

“Definitely better.” He gently eased his hands away from Steve's face and the side of his neck, and took a hold of his hand. “But I say we definitely need more practice.”

He tugged Steve through the glass doors and to the hooting and catcalling echoing in the rec room.

For the sake of his own peace of mind, he pretended not to notice the rest of the team slapping money in each others' hands in what looked like the settling of some serious bets. He pretended not to notice Natasha and  _Bruce_  of all people were the ones holding the largest amounts of crumpled up five-dollar bills.

“Yeah, go get it, Captain!” Clint crowed from his perch on the armrest of the couch.

“The Captain and the Sergeant?” Thor boomed. Bucky should have maybe been disturbed how delighted he looked. “How wonderful! I hope you bring much joy to each other's lives.”

Tony slapped his hand on his eyes. “Oh god,” he said. “Old man Rogers is so getting laid and I can't get the picture out of my head.”

“I'm twenty eight, Stark,” Steve yelled back. “Not dead.”

Bucky nudged Steve's hip with his own. He only needed to raise his eyebrow pointedly and leer, and he knew Steve was instantly aboard with the plan. The corner of his mouth twitched.

Bucky raised his voice enough for it to be heard loud and clear by the rest. “You know how I like it, Steve.” He reached down to squeeze Steve's ass firmly, and heard someone choke on their spit behind them. Probably Tony. “Hope I'll be able to still walk tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Steve reached his own hand to grab a handful of Bucky's shirt at the small of his back. “No chance. Neither of us will walk straight for a week.”

A yelp and a crash, followed by the tinkling sound of Natasha's delighted laughter. Tony was making sputtering sounds and as Bucky glanced over his shoulder, he could see Clint laying flat on his face on the floor, his mouth hanging open in shock.

“God, Stevie, they're so easy.” Bucky made sure his voice was still loud enough to be heard by the team.

“I know, right. They just eat it all up.”

“I just –“ Tony stuttered. He pointed at Steve accusingly and then at Sam. “He's evil. Rogers is  _evil_. How did this happen?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Get on with the program, man. Anyone with a history book and a decent amount of common sense knows Steve's not some shrinking violet.”

Natasha recovered enough to snort. “I have a feeling we've only gotten a glimpse. Better buckle up, boys.”

Bucky blew her a kiss over his shoulder, and walked out of the room with Steve's arm wrapped around his waist.

 

♦

“Stark.”

A yelp, then a crash. “Good Christ, Barnes, you scared me to death.” Tony fumbled on his workspace, knocking over two tubes of silvery substance and a small robot that shrieked when it keeled over, before he turned to eye Bucky a bit wildly. “If this is about earlier I swear if anyone says I've made JARVIS 'spy' on you guys it's definitely not –“

“Can you look at my arm,” Bucky cut in, and extended his left hand. “Some of the plates are kind of stuck, and it makes weird noises.”

Tony's whole face lit up like a Christmas tree. He pointed to a stool by his workbench. “Here. Sweatshirt off. Hold your arm out.” As Bucky complied, stripping his shirt off and settling on the seat, Tony whirled around the room, picking up tools and gadgets poking at the screens hovering in mid-air. Then he wheeled back to the table. “Come to mama,” he cooed, eyes shining.

“Are you talking to the arm?”

“Yes.”

“And – wait, what do mean  _spying_?”

“Nothing. Moving on. Now let's see what's bothering this little baby.”

As Tony worked, Bucky's foot tapped an uneven rhythm on the floor. He chewed on his lower lip, and fiddled with a loose thread on his sweatpants.

“Okay, spit it out.”

Bucky's head whipped up. “What?”

“You didn't come here willingly, mind you, just to get your arm fixed.” Tony leaned on the table with his elbows. “So spill. And I really hope it's none of that relationship stuff you discuss with Wilson, because you have come to the wrong place for that. Pepper is good at that stuff, I'm not. She says I get machines, but I don't know how people work and I'm pretty sure she's right, and –“

“I actually came to ask for advice with computers.”

Tony snapped his mouth shut. “Oh. So, what is it?” He suddenly went a little pale. “I hope it's not for googling porn, please tell me you don't need help googling porn.”

“No, it's –“ Tony just looked at him questioningly, so Bucky squared his shoulders. “Could you show me how to get a marriage license online?”

 

♦

 

He pressed the words into Steve's skin four days later, in the hazy light of a quiet morning

Steve was asleep - or so Bucky thought – starfished on the bed on his stomach and snoring very lightly. His hair was an absolute mess, defying gravity by sticking in every possible direction, and his face was slack with sleep.

Bucky was pretty sure he had never seen anything more beautiful.

He leaned over, and breathed the words on Steve's skin. Just below his right shoulder blade, in a faint whisper.“You know I love you, right?” He pressed a ghost of a kiss on the warm skin.“I love you.”

Steve stirred, but didn't show any signs of actually waking up.

After two minutes of them quietly breathing together, Bucky slipping his hands under Steve's shirt and tracing patterns over the knobs of his spine, Steve finally broke the silence.“I do,” he said quietly. “And I love you, too.”

Bucky smiled, and knew Steve must have felt it against his back.“Shh,” he shushed,“I was having a moment.”

“On your own?”

He pinched Steve lightly, and grinned when it made him jump.“Give a guy some privacy, you weren't supposed to hear.”

“Oh, am I bothering you? I am so sorry, please continue.”

“You are.”

Steve wriggled under his weight until he was able to look over his shoulder and Bucky in the eye. One eyebrow was raised skeptically.“You should definitely not have tickled me, then. And you weigh like a ton. Kinda hard not to wake up with a whale on top of you.”

“Hey!”

“Just saying like it is.”

“You sure know how to sweet talk a fella, Stevie.”

Steve's grin was so wide it was visible even from where Bucky was sprawling.“Not like I've had much practice. You're the only fella I've ever wanted to sweet talk, and you're a terrible choice for a guinea pig.”

Bucky felt a grin spread on his lips. He squirmed closer and mashed his face at the back of Steve's neck. His skin was sleep-warm. “You smell nice,” he mumbled.

“Yeah?”

“Mmm.”

“Like what?”

“Like soap, and sketchbook paper, and your leather jacket.” He traced a finger along the patch of skin between Steve's hairline and his ear.  _Like home_ , he thought.

He felt Steve shake in silent chuckles beneath him. “You smell like bad morning breath.”

Bucky pinched him again – his ass this time – and smirked when he earned another startled squawk.

“Quiet. You ruined my moment again.”

♦

He bought the rings on a whim.

When he slid the delicate black velvet box across the breakfast table one morning, the look on Steve's face was priceless. Emotions raced across his features faster than Bucky could interpret them – confusion, surprise, shock, wonder, and – very lastly – undiluted joy. His face split into a grin so wide the corners of his eyes fanned into crow-feet crinkles.

”Bucky?” He asked, eyes flitting from Bucky's eyes to the box and back again.

Bucky nudged it closer.“Open it.”

Steve pushed his plate of toast aside, and eased the box open with unsteady hands.

The ring Steve pulled out was Sterling silver, and inlaid with a tiny yellow stone. Bucky was pretty sure it was actually glass, but he wasn't going for the real deal, anyway. What he bought that particular ring for was the pattern surrounding the stone: a radiant sun, inlaid in the silver with gold, the rays snaking along the surface of the ring.

Pepper had helped him. She had patiently offered her advice as he had browsed through dozens of designs, smiling gently. She had liked this one, too. She had said it was a good idea.

As Steve turned the ring around in his hands like it was made from the most precious of metals, eyes shining with something that made Bucky's own chest hurt, Bucky reached into his pocket to pull out the other one. The one matching the ring in Steve's hands. This one was made entirely of silver and instead of a sun, it had a crescent moon and stars dappling its surface.

Bucky laid the ring on the table, and took the other from Steve's hands.“You know what they say about suns and moons,” he mumbled, suddenly feeling shy. What the hell was he thinking again? Maybe had he overdone it again and managed to just make things awkward. “The Moon is so bright because it gets its light from the Sun.” He placed the other ring, the one with the crescent and the stars, on top of Steve's. The other one had a little groove in it, and they fit together seamlessly.“Moons revolve around suns, or something like that.”

”Bucky...” was all Steve said. He sounded choked, and his eyes shined a little too bright to be just a trick of the light. He looked right about ready to cry.

“You're my sun, Stevie. You always have been.” He had to clear his throat again.”That's, like, really sappy, I know, but...”

“I love it,” Steve cut in.

“I – Really?”

“Really.”

Bucky held the ring up, and met Steve's watery gaze.“I talked to Natasha and Sam and they actually said two fellas could get, you know, officially married these days, and it's actually okay. And I know how to get the license online, so...” He flitted a glance at Steve. “If you'll have me?”

At his tiny but emphatic nod, Bucky gently slid it into Steve's finger.

Steve kept nodding even after it was slotted into place, his eyes on the radiant little sun.“Yes, of course, Bucky,” he said. He kept repeating it, like a prayer.“Of course, of course.”

He took the other ring from the table, and held his hand as he slid it on to Bucky's finger.

It was kind of fitting, actually, Bucky thought. Steve with the sun, with eyes as bright as the summer skies, and Bucky with the silver moon, his irises smoky blue like the horizon at dusk.

Steve stood up, and held out his hand to him. “Dance with me?”

“My, Mr. Rogers,” Bucky crooned demurely.

Steve rolled his eyes. “Shut up. Take my hand.”

Bucky took the hand.

It wasn't really dancing as much as an excuse to hold each other as tightly as they could. They swayed in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by dirty coffee cups, stacks of newspapers, and the smell of the toast Bucky had burned the day before, Bucky's face pressed into the curve of Steve's neck. Steve's arm was wrapped tightly around Bucky's middle, his other hand cradling the back of Bucky's head. If he had held on any more tightly, Bucky might have thought Steve tried to crawl under his skin.

It was just as well; Bucky's own hands were bunched in the fabric of Steve's shirt so tightly his knuckles of his flesh-and-blood hand were white, and the metal plates whirred in the other.

They didn't have any music – Bucky shook his head when JARVIS gently asked if they would like him to play some – and neither of them were wearing shoes, so it was quiet. Up until Steve started quietly humming into Bucky's ear, his lips brushing against his hair.

Bucky grinned. Irving Berlin.  _How Deep is the Ocean._

Of course Steve would remember.

When they had been just two boys in Brooklyn – before the war, before everything – Bucky had heard the song on the radio and taken to it immediately. It was sappy as hell – Bucky had never admitted to actually  _liking_  it, without any irony, but he remembered pulling Steve up from the rickety kitchen table whenever it came on on the radio. He swirled him around in the living room in front of their only window while the old pipes in their building groaned and rattled, and Brooklyn traffic murmured out on the street.

Steve would roll his eyes, and poke Bucky's chest with his thin finger. “I still can't dance, Buck,” he always said.

Bucky just grinned more widely, and dipped Steve to get a startled yelp out of him. “You'll learn.” He would see the smile at the edges of his mouth, threatening to break through; he knew Steve didn't mind.

Steve also always stepped on his toes.

But it wasn't like Bucky minded, either.

 

**Author's Note:**

> ♦ [These](http://kickassthings.com/2014/01/kick-ass-gifts-couple-matching-jewelry/) are the rings I was thinking about.  
> ♦ The [song](http://youtu.be/PHbkyRZteUw) Bucky and Steve dance to was written in the early 30s, and it's super syrupy.  
> ♦ I'm pretty sure Steve didn't actually blurt out anyone's name when he woke up, he was too busy smashing through walls, but shhh, let me just tinker with the canon a little.  
> ♦ Plus I'm getting really conflicted info about Steve's age. In all the MCU databases it says he was born in 1918, and he was, what, twenty six when he crashed the plane into the Arctic? And he's been thawed for a while. I eventually got a headache trying to count his exact age so I'm just blatantly assuming he'd be around twenty eight now.


End file.
